Thinking Positively

[poliphilo]

Ailz has started going to a Self Care Skills Training Course. It's something the doctor signed her up for. I drop her off at the door and go to the library.

I wander over to the Modern Classics shelf and see what catches my eye.  Last time it was The Master and Margarita. This time it's Ford Madox Ford's First World War tetralogy, Parade's End.

Project Balzac seems to be over, by the way.  I kept going until it stopped being fun- which it did with Une Tenebreuse Affaire- a stodgy wedge of royalist propaganda, laughably described as a "thriller". I love Balzac- and I'm sure I'll go back to him- but right now I want a change of air.

I pick Ailz up. "You could have done with being in there," she says," They were teaching us to think positively."

Ah yes.

I give her a banana for her blood sugar. 

"I was talking to "A", she says. "A" is one of the counsellors. This is what happens with Ailz.  Coven or no coven, she's a High Priestess- and gives off "confide in me" vibes.  "A"- poor kid- a British-born Asian-  has just married a guy from Pakistan who doesn't speak English and doesn't have any skills or qualifications- and it's turning out to be a really tough gig for both of them. (This wasn't a forced marriage, by the way, merely arranged; they both agreed to it.) Her friends have been commiserating with her since- "oh yes, that's just like me and my husband"- but none of them had the kindness to warn her in advance.

There's a book that comes with the course. It's a workbook. You go through it, ticking boxes. Maybe I'll work through it myself, when Ailz is finished. Yes, I do expect the worst.  Always have done.  

Comments

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

I read Parade's End over the summer and I wanted to read it again almost immediately. I've restrained myself because it's 800 pages and there are plenty of other books demanding my attention.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've read the first few pages now. It seems very well-observed.

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

You would have thought the arrangers of the marriage would have put more thought into it. Even from a dynastic, traditional point of view, how does it benefit them to marry off their daughter to someone ignorant and unskilled?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Exactly. The logic of arranged marriage- that parents will choose more wisely than their hormonally inflamed children- simply doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

which scrapes away at the thin layer of "cultural relativity" which disguises the naked, seething misogyny behind such practices.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes.

Misogyny has a disconcerting way of dressing itself up as culture and religion and demanding our respect.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

Optimists are often cruelly disappoionted.
Pessimists are often pleasantly surprised. To me, that's wht serendipity is all about.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

"Pessimists are often pleasantly surprised"

That's what I tell myself. In fact pessismism is really just another way of being optimistic.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I'm reading ghost stories in honor of October.

One I found--Dickens' "The Haunted House," which had several well known authors contribute chapters to it, as "The Haunted Cupboard," etc.--is new to me, written about 1845 or so as a result of the great success of Dickens' Christmas Carol ghost story.

-- I am always amazed and admiring when you discuss your health care system. It sounds so wonderfully helpful and thoughtful.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I read The Haunted House quite recently. An odd piece of work. I liked Dickens' opening chapter- everything else much less.

The Health Service is a safety net. It's wonderful not having to worry about medical insurance and hospital bills.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

In a year and a half I must go on Medicare, which is a forced government plan.

It's not free--in fact, its cost rises every year, and even though Social Security offers a cost of living raise every year I think it's pretty much eaten up by the added cost of Medicare. Right now I am paying about $160 a month for my health insurance through the company from which I retired, but when I begin Medicare I will lose that coverage and will be paying about $250-$300 a month (or more) for it. In addition, I now have cheap dental help ($13 a month) and visual care, which will be gone in a year and a half, and, because such services' costs are artificially high because of insurance payments, I'll be almost unable to ever get good dental care again.

Finally, Medicare is not good coverage--only the poorest dare go with only Medicare; I will need to purchase a private Medigap plan that will supplement what Medicare covers, and it will cost me another %150-$200 a month. At this point, a year and a half from now, I must rethink my life, and hope that I can have some quality still available outside paying for medical coverage. And I'm typical, I think, and even luckier than many.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's terrible. I don't know how you (meaning the people of the USA collectively) tolerate it. You should be demanding socialised medicine!

The National Health Service was created shortly before I was born, so I've never known any other system. It's not flawless; mistakes are made, standards vary across the network- but I've never had any complaints myself.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Right now I only have one monthly medicine, thyroid medicine, and it's one of the cheapest on the market. My mother in her last years had many pills every day, and each variety of medication had at least a $20 deductible--and this was in addition to her medicare and supplement policies.

For those poor souls who fall through the cracks and cannot get anything at all--Medicare, I believe (and could be incorrect) is a benefit adjuncted to social security; those who do not qualify for social security will not recieve any coverage at all except through private means. And their prescriptions are therefore full-price, which in the US is unbelievably expensive--I was standing behind a woman at a pharmacy last year and she handed over OVER $700 for a SINGLE prescription for which she was paying full price.

Obama and McCain both claim to want to fix this, of course; but one must realize that neither are reckoning on our terrific national economic crisis and debt.

As I say, I am not unaware that I am one of the lucky ones, having worked for a good company that will offer me a competitively priced supplement plan (but it will be expensive even so) and I am also eligible for social security and medicare...but if my health should suddenly change (which certainly it will, as it does for us all), I could be destitute (having run through my savings within a short time) and dependent on the charity of my family--a fear most of us have in the US if we are not rather wealthy, which I most assuredly am not...